Of all the tests taken in Year 6, it has been the writing one that has caused the most consternation over the years and there has been support for Lord Bew’s recommendation that they be scrapped (or, more accurately, replaced with a mix of moderated teacher assessment and tests in grammar, punctuation, vocabulary and – heavens above – handwriting).

There is a certain objectivity to numeracy that lends itself to traditional testing (although I’m not so sure three different tests – calculator, non-calculator, and quick mental maths – are entirely necessary in order to establish a child’s mathematical capabilities at this age).

The science test, now pretty much obsolete except for the small number of schools chosen to taken them for moderating purposes, also had a clearer basis in yes/no or right/wrong therefore lending itself more readily to external testing.

The reading test has a lot to answer for, particularly this year’s paper which, in parts, was obscure to the point of being inaccessible (see post here for a summary, including Michael Rosen intellectually shredding the paper, question by question).

Lord Bew’s review advocates a re-vamped reading test design which looks at the amount of writing required in the current test, the kind of texts children are expected to read and making the sequencing of questions more accessible to lower ability children. Quite right too. But why these recommendations weren’t already part of the test design is extraordinary. It does make you wonder what planet the test makers inhabit and, back down to earth, what procedures – if any – they have in place for gathering feedback from teachers (or indeed, the children) on the tests they produce. Making tests progressively harder so the less able children can access them is not rocket science, even for a science paper.

But, to return to the writing tests, Bew is right to tip the balance clearly towards teacher assessment. Aside from the difficulty of assessing a single piece of writing with all the inherent subjectivity this involves, this is the test that puts children under the most unfair and artificial pressure.

Writing is a creative experience but the testing process reduces it to something functional: use a semi-colon; write a complex sentence; add a rhetorical question. It’s as if writing is seen as nothing more than the routine assembly of constituent parts which can be simply reproduced by following set procedures, the same as building a scale model or changing a lightbulb.

To succeed in these tests children have no particular need to show flair or imagination, but must instead demonstrate their technical skills under highly constrained conditions (one test is twenty minutes long, including planning time). How hard it is to generate a passion for words and for writing when, as teacher, you know you are to be judged not simply by a child’s mastery of parentheses (which I’m all for), but whether they can reproduce this mastery – whether their writing needs it or not – under timed and pressured conditions. This is difficult – it leads irreversibly towards teaching to the test and ticking of boxes.

So, well done Lord Bew for scrapping the writing tests.

As for their replacement – tests in grammar, punctuation, vocabulary and handwriting – the jury is very much out. We may have to wait and see what they look like and, critically, how much weight is put on each of the elements, compared to the teacher’s assessment of the child’s work throughout the year.

Certainly, in a technological age, a handwriting test seems somewhat anachronistic and, in terms of grammar and punctuation, I can’t help thinking of Cormac McCarthy – the authors who prefers ‘simple sentences’, never uses speech marks or semi-colons, only bothers with an ‘occasional comma’ and believes there is ‘no reason to blot up the page with weird little marks’. But, what does he know, he’s only won the Pulitzer Prize.

This is dotty on so many levels. These parents would need to be supervised – so who would be free to do that? What exactly would they teach? What would happen, say, if there was an accident? Or a badly misbehaving pupil? Head Teachers and Governors would have a lot of explaining to do (and be without a leg to stand on) if something went wrong.

Aside from the practicalities, Gove is also sending the message that teaching is an amateurish pursuit which anyone can have a go at, and do to satisfactory standard at the drop of a hat. Causing offence and being provocative at such a time is a very peculiar tactic. The effect of such disrespect, rather than diffusing the situation, will be to rally more and more teachers to the union cause

More perniciously, Gove’s words seek to drive a wedge between the two most important people in a child’s learning and development: teacher and parent. Where there is trust, understanding and dialogue between teacher and parent, the child benefits.

Parents may – or may not – support the strike action. If they don’t, there is no reason why this relationship should collapse as a result; it should be strong enough and mature enough to withstand a difference of opinion.

But why should the Education Secretary decide to strain this relationship, to push it past breaking point, by saying it would be ‘great’ if parents, this Thursday, became strike-breakers.

When a dangerous fire is beginning to burn, Mr Gove, wouldn’t it be wise to dampen it down; to calmly put it out rather than adding more fuel?

But not for much longer. Via schemes such as Tomorrow’s Heads and due to the flexibility that inevitably flows from a Government that has pledged to allow schools much more say in their own affairs, we are about to see a new cohort of Head-teachers who have one thing in common: they will have never stood before thirty bright-eyed (or heavy-lidded) children and taught a lesson.

Some of these new leaders will have worked in schools, in administrative or pastoral roles of some kind; others may arrive from different sectors which have a link with education – a museum, say, or a voluntary organisation working with children. But other won’t. They may come from a business without any obvious connections to education, schools or children.

The idea, obviously enough, is to cast the recruitment net far and wide and to attract the best candidates from a wider pool. The theory is based in turn on the concept of ‘transferable skills’ – a visionary leader who can manage people, budget, pressure and all the rest is able to do so whether they are operating in a supermarket, a sales team or in a school. The tasks may be different but the skills are the same – or so the theory goes.

There is some sense to building greater flexibility into routes to Head-ship. As the baby-boomer generation retires there is a need – chronic in some places – for a new batch of school leaders to fill their shoes. Due to the perceived and actual difficulties of the job, as well as a desire to remain in the classroom, most teachers find the idea of moving to the top of the pile somewhat unappealing. Even those who get to Deputy often stay put, content with being second-in-command.

Of course, the emphasis on attracting the best people into Head-ship is self-evidently a good thing, but even more so given the considerable structural changes currently underway; it is going to take light-footed leaders to navigate their way through the new educational landscape, and to shape it so it is better than what went before.

As schools de-couple themselves from the links they have to local authorities, and as new kinds of schools are established, new partnerships will emerge. Who knows? Perhaps those who arrive unencumbered with the experience of how things were – or indeed how things are – will be better placed to make sense of Michael Gove’s brave new world.

But there are problems with this approach, not least with the question of qualifications. Can someone who has never taught manage – in the sense of assess the performance – a teacher? While much of this task may be about things that are in no way unique to the school experience (good communication between manager and managed, for example) – therefore opening up the role to any competent person – there’s the tricky issue of judging what happens in a class-room. How can you know what is good teaching unless you’ve been there and done it?

Unless we intend to devalue teaching and learning, reduce it to a tick-box list accessible to any lay person (some would say we are there already), this presents a challenge for any non-teacher putting themselves forward. A solution for larger schools, or perhaps for federations where a Head oversees more than one school, may be to delegate assessment of ‘teaching and learning’ to a qualified senior teacher. Whatever the solution, it needs to be credible, as teachers will quite rightly question these judgements.

More generally, the so-called ‘transferable skills’ can surely only stretch so far; it would take some of exceptional ability to seamlessly make the leap from the corporate world. Are there many who fit the bill?

A bit like the Apprentice, it’s not hard to picture strident young business-people, stepping confidently through the school doors, impressing a panel with their can-do attitude, their extraordinary achievements and their boundless energy; only to crumble as soon as they are presented with the realities of the task.

Let us see: we may get some corporate heroes who can inspire their teams and transform our schools, or talented people from other fields.

Or, heaven forbid, we may get Stuart Baggs.

Leaping into the ring, the Archbishop has well and truly stuck the boot in, lashing out at the coalition for making radical reforms without a mandate, and slamming the opposition for failing to devise or articulate an alternative to the cuts and the foundation-shaking policies in health and in education.

The response so far to his article in the New Statesman has generated a passionate response from the Prime Minister and some stinging comments from his backbenchers, suggesting Williams is an unwelcome visitor on the sacred turf marked ‘party politics’.

His words were undoubtedly designed to provoke – this was a carefully constructed piece written by his own hand, not an interview (where even the most disciplined guard can be accidentally dropped).

Of course, if you are anything close to left-of-centre, it’s easy to be drawn to Williams’ critique of the coalition, but his scatter-gun approach makes it difficult to unreservedly rally to his cause.

It seems a bit too simplistic and unthinking, for example, to jump on the bandwagon which slates the opposition for keeping their policy powder dry – if opposition is not the time for reflection and prolonged analysis, then when is? And you would be a pretty foolish opposition to set out policies with any certainty when the next election is four years away – who knows what the landscape will look like in 2015?

What is most odd – and what seriously weakens his position – is that Williams himself seems to be lacking in ideas, or at least ideas which could be described as concrete, tangible or even – to be honest – understandable.

He talks of re-inventing co-operation and syndicalism, but doesn’t bother to explain how; he asks for ‘better communication’ of ‘strategic imperatives’ – whatever that means; he dismisses ‘managerial politics’ and ‘associational socialism’ – phrases familiar perhaps to him and the small number of people who actually read the New Statesman, but pretty meaningless to your average man in the pew.

This is a missed opportunity. Unencumbered by the demands of political reality, Williams and the Church he represents, are ideally positioned to set out a clear and precise vision of public policy.

The criticism he makes of the left for not developing an alternative is precisely the vacuum that he – and the considerable resources his Church commands – should occupy.

But it should not be filled with bluster and brickbats – they serve only the needs of radio phone-ins and political chat shows. Nor should the gap be plugged with abstractions and theories alone. What we need are ideas that can be applied in the real world.

While Archbishop Williams may well have painted an accurate picture of the devil, but what we now need from him is the detail.

Their latest dollop of common sense comes in the form of a guide for schools on how to spend the Pupil Premium. They keep clear of the politics, not seeking to make a judgement on whether the Premium is ever going to meet its grandiose aims: to increase social mobility, to reduce the gap between the highest and lowest achieving pupils and to smooth the barely-worn path from a place called ‘deprivation’ to somewhere called ‘Oxbridge’. Instead they present, in simple terms, options for schools about how to spend their cash.

It’s clear, quite early on in the report, that the authors not only engaged their brains, but – in deciding what to include in their list – also managed to plant tongues firmly in cheeks. They surely had the bone-headed traditionalists in mind – those who believe that the absence of a well-knotted, throat-gripping school tie explains just about everything that is wrong with our schools – when they explained that there is no evidence that school uniform improves ‘academic performance, behaviour or attendance’. So there!

They also slay, in a gentle academic way, some other sacred cows. Grouping by ability, for example, is described as ‘what not to do if you want low income pupils to benefit’. And the benefits of homework are summarised as ‘modest’ at secondary school, and even less so at primary school.

But in true boffin-style, they are concerned not with the grinding of axes but with the evidence. This leads them to similarly dismiss the more cuddly teaching approaches, such as developing activities for children based on their ‘learning styles’, which in some cases has been shown to have a detrimental effect. They also have little time, purely in the context of the aims of the Pupil Premium, for reducing class sizes, after school programmes or summer schools.

More controversially, however, the Sutton Trust questions the role of Teaching Assistants who, according to studies, have ‘very small or no effects on attainment’ particularly when their main role is either to tidy up after the teacher or to provide ill-defined support to a particular child or group of children.

This finding should make schools – if they are anything like mine – think long and hard about Teaching Assistants on their pay roll and how they are matched with children who may be the beneficiaries of the Pupil Premium. What a waste if the Premium ends up aimlessly dumped in the generic pot for ‘special needs support’ – perhaps to top up the hours of a Teaching Assistant, who ends up spending her time at the photocopier or sharpening pencils.

So, to the key question: what does work?

The Sutton Trust points to three things:

First, the teacher providing effective feedback to the learner about their progress.

Second, ‘meta-cognition strategies’ – teaching approaches which ‘make learners’ thinking about learning more explicit in the classroom’.

Third, ‘peer tutoring’ where ‘learners work in pairs or small groups to provide each other with explicit teaching support’.

It’s as simple as that, apparently.

What is striking about the Sutton Trust’s top three is that, put simply, they cost peanuts. Money does not need to be thrown at the problem. To make this work, there’s no need for top-of-the-range technology. Nor do you need to convert to an Academy. Or teach Latin while playing rugby (competitively of course).

The only real expenditure is on a bit of CPD which, presumably, the school would be spending anyway.

What is more interesting, though, is that these interventions bring us back to a simple truth: it is good, innovative teaching that makes the difference, done by teachers who are constantly on the look out for what will make them better at their work.

One thing nags at me, however; if we take the Sutton Trust’s advice and warmly embrace the benefits of feedback, draw close to us the joys of meta-cognition and cherish the benefits of peer tutoring – wouldn’t we then do this routinely in our classrooms? Wouldn’t all our charges benefit – rich and poor, Premium and – erm – Standard? Who could argue against such an improvement, but how will this narrow the attainment gap? Perhaps it’s not so simple, after all.

That’s a serious charge, but a pretty persuasive one. Mind you, having just emerged from a few weeks of cramming juvenile brains with certainties – facts to be reproduced on SATs day – it wouldn’t take much to win me over.

I won’t repeat his points at length – mainly because he writes better than I do and, besides, you’ve got Google so you can go and find out for yourself. But what he says about the absence of genuine thought within the average child’s school day rings true. Yes, we cover a lot and are busy, busy, busy. Is that enough though?

For me, in the classroom, some of the most revelatory moments have arisen when I’ve put the plan to one side – jam-packed as it is with differentiated activities, resources, assessment opportunities and the rest – and allowed for a discussion to emerge. A proper one – with opinions, and disagreement, and challenge. This is learning, just as much – if not more – than a neatly marked page full of times tables or a list of English Kings and Queens in a text book.

Sometimes the discussion can lasts minutes, sometimes it fizzes around the room until necessity brings it to a close. On these occasions, there is a shift that can be hard to describe and difficult to define, but it sure looks and feels a lot like thinking. My guess is that brains – in some small way – have been re-configured, re-shaped for the better.

It’s hard to disagree that with Gilbert’s view that we need to find a way to generate more of these moments, not less. And that’s why we still need teachers.

Let us put aside, for the moment, the question about whether the size of the pupil premium is anywhere near sufficient to address educational inequalities. Let us assume that a school receiving their cash trickles it down to the child concerned, rather than chucking it in the pot along with everything else, used to cover spending cuts elsewhere. Let us pretend we have arrived at this point where schools are faced with the nub of the issue: what will make a difference?

The policy wonks – or, in this case it seem to be a wonk, singular – at the Institute for Public Policy and Research (IPPR) have drawn attention to this key question with an article here.

While they are of course right – in a state-the-bloomin’-obvious kind of way – to make the point that funding of any kind is wasted if it is not spent effectively, it is their proposals for what to do with the cash which catch the eye. And not, unfortunately, for the right reasons.

They have argued, for instance, in the article above and also here, that there is a lack of accountability with how the money is spent and, to address this, schools should have to agree with a child’s parents how the money should be spent.

While accountability may be a problem, the solution suggests more of a bureaucratic process – a letter sent home, I imagine – than anything like a genuine engagement with the child’s needs. Yet if ‘agreement’ involves a thorough process of discussion and consultation, this arrangement would become impractical – how many hours would this take, in a school with 10-15% of their roll on free school meals?

Not much food for thought from IPPR so far.

Added to this, though, the think-tank has selected three areas that schools should ‘prioritise’ when spending the premium: reading catch-up programmes; family support workers to link home and school; and an increase in formative assessment in schools.

At first glance, it does seem odd for a think-tank to be telling teachers what to do in such a precise way. I wonder if they also advise Doctors on how to treat patients?

Also, it begs the question how the list was generated. At one level it’s pointless: why, for example, should reading be ‘prioritised’ if the child is behind with Maths?

And why have they picked out ‘formative assessment’? As good a method as it is in terms of accelerating progress, formative assessment is about an approach to teaching and learning in the classroom – it’s not something you do ‘to’ a particular, individual child.

More to the point, it doesn’t cost anything (beyond going to Amazon and buying a book called ‘Inside the Black Box’) and has already been the subject of much attention in schools.

Given their enthusiasm for accountability, if you made the case for formative assessment, you would be hard pushed to explain to a parent (or anyone else) that the £430 has been spent on helping little Johnny or Joanna any more than it has helped anyone and everyone in the class. What, exactly, are they proposing the money is spent on? A muddled idea, this one.

However, with the idea of family support, IPPR may be on to something. The missing link in terms of narrowing the gap between rich and poor is often an effective relationship (in terms of learning) between parent, school and child is vital. To make the difference, schools may need to up their game – but some parents may have to as well. And, with this, a bit of support, guidance and encouragement may make all the difference.

What IPPR’s list does reveal is just how difficult it is to decide how to spend the cash, and the challenges for schools and individual teachers when trying to make informed decisions.

It seems, at this moment in time, the pupil premium may fail on three counts. First of all, it’s not enough. Second, it’s not, in fact, a premium. And, third, whatever cash does find its way to schools under the brand name ‘pupil premium’, may well be lost in a mix of confusion and cuts.

There is a pretty well-established critique of SATs which suggests they put too much pressure on children while telling us little about their abilities that we don’t know already. The high-stakes nature of the SATs, with league tables constructed based on the results, narrows the curriculum and moves school life away from learning and creativity towards something best described as training (take a look at this blog-post written from the perspective of teacher and parent – it makes for painful reading).

Added to this criticism of the system and its effects on children, is a more forensic analysis by Michael Rosen, who brilliantly (and at some length) picks apart the detail of the reading assessment undertaken this year.

Reading Rosen’s argument was a huge relief – I was not alone. I had looked at the paper with amazement – and a sense of rising panic – wondering quite how some of the questions should be answered. Many of the references in the text were obscure and technical, pushing the capabilities of even the best readers.

And, as Rosen’s points out, some of the inferential question required a broader understanding or life experience which is simply beyond most ten or eleven year olds (except those, he argues, who have had a particular upbringing – middle-class and fortunate, with frequent day trips to national parks. I paraphrase a smidgeon here of course – the best way to do justice to Rosen’s words is to read them in full).

There’s nothing wrong with a challenge, but it should be within reach. Parts of this test seemed downright unfair. Along with the more familiar, systemic criticisms of SATs, Rosen’s line-by-line and word-by-word assault raises further questions about the point of such an assessment, particularly when it seems set up, by design, to create failure, rather than providing a meaningful picture of a child’s reading abilities.

A simple solution would be to scrap SATs and give children a ‘level’ at the end of Year 6 based on the assessment of the teacher. To ensure accuracy and accountability, schools should be expected to have internal systems to moderate and check these assessments. This could then be supplemented by an external check, perhaps with random sampling of schools or individual children.

That way, we would still have good, rigorous data on school performance, but without the hothousing and the strains brought about by the current system. And, who knows, instead of focussing a child’s final primary year on jumping through hoops, we could focus on what really matters and what really makes a difference to life chances: teaching and learning.

Of course, it would be wrong-headed to close our eyes to innovation, whether it’s in a school next door or a classroom in Kuala Lumpur.

Equally, there are difficulties with directly importing policies from overseas, not least because of the social, economic, cultural and historical differences from one country to the next.

As such, transplanting ideas is not simply a case of ‘cut and paste’, much like the wine that tastes sumptuous when gazing at the Adriatic breathing in lemon-scented air, which turns to vinegar when you’re back in blighty watching Eastender and tucking into a chicken chow mein.

With wine and with policy, you have to take great care with what goes in the suitcase for the homeward flight.

It is hard to know what to pick. The easiest option is to establish your point of view and merely scour the globe for ideas that closely match your own preconceptions. This, however, lacks objectivity. It rules out the genuinely innovative – you look but you don’t really see.

Looking at Gove’s plans, it’s not clear whether this really has been a genuine attempt to scrutinise our friends and competitors and to match – or exceed – the best of what they do (have a read of this excellent article on the school system in Finland, a country often cited by Gove as as an inspiration, not least because they regularly appear top of international league tables – make a tally of ‘similarities’ and ‘differences’ and see which comes on top).

Hence, we choose to import the concept of free schools from the U.S and Sweden, but ignore the fact that Finland has no equivalent. And, where a child aged seven in Helsinki will just be starting school after a play-based introduction to learning, in England we have decided to introduce a reading test at the age of six to see whether they can read not just simple words, but also non-words like ‘koob’ or ‘zort’. Madness!

Yet, staring us in the face, there is one area where we should replicate our Finnish friends precisely; it would make a huge, tangible difference to the quality of education in this country. And it’s quite simple: teachers should be qualified to Masters level.

Imagine this: every teacher undertaking further to study to improve their classroom practice; every teacher familiar with the latest research (and knowing themselves what the best schools in Alberta and Stockholm are up to); every teacher developing specialist knowledge and applying it in their classrooms; every teacher understanding research methods and continually investigating ways to improve what they do.

Imagine the potential for improving the quality of teaching – and try to imagine the difference this would make to children’s learning.

This would not need radical upheaval of school governance, nor (relatively speaking) bags of cash. There would certainly be no need for a shiny new Education Bill. But maybe that’s why it’s been ignored by Michael Gove – the best ideas don’t always catch the eye, particularly when you aren’t looking closely enough.

All the other children notice when he’s not here. The silence at a certain point in the register – the momentary pause – fills the room. They roll their eyes, even giggle, and ask: ‘where is he?’, ‘don’t tell me he’s not here again’.

With one empty seat, another day begins…

Mondays are regularly missed. Fridays too. Sometimes – often – it’s both. The reason each time is endlessly different. Stomach upset, headache, bad knee. It’s hard to keep up. The common thread is that I don’t believe he’s been ill – I think he’s at home watching television.

He’s behind everyone else, but has the potential to do well, to progress and to meet – if not exceed – expectations. But his potential is withering, becoming lost as his days drift by.

What can we do? We make a big fuss about attendance and who has the best record. The competition keeps the children on their toes; they puff their chests out with pride when they are congratulated for attending every day of a term or, even better, every day in a year. Some children have even progressed through the whole school without missing a day.

And, as well as carrot, there is stick. Letters are sent to regular absentees; truancy patrols alerted; authorities informed. Parents are summoned for serious conversations. The simple, obvious correlation between being in school and progressing at school is explained, clearly and simply. The message, we hope, is compelling.

Yet, before the week ends: with one empty seat, another day begins.

Of course, illness happens, people get sick. Children, particularly younger ones, have an uncanny knack of spreading germs (anyone who has been on the soggy receiving end of a full-face sneeze knows as much!).

And, the starting point must be to trust and believe both child and parent; if they say they are ill, so be it. It’s difficult to challenge without evidence to the contrary (how do you prove someone doesn’t have a headache?). So, we err on the side of caution, offer sympathy rather than indignation.

Sometimes missing days can signify something darker, more serious. But not in this case, there’s nothing more mysterious than this: school doesn’t seem to matter to his parents, and therefore to him. Such a waste.

After all that’s been tried, what’s the solution? One thing – suggested in desperation – would be to keep him back a year. Make him repeat it all again. If he turns up and makes progress, then on he goes. It sends a message to his parents, and also to him; a painful and joyless lesson, perhaps, but necessary.

The alternative – to turn a blind eye, to send the message that success does not come from effort (and good fortune) – serves no-one, least of all a child who is missing out on one of life’s essentials.